Government embarrassment, ministerial cock-ups, coalition rows, backroom deals, policy U-turns, spin-doctoring, political back-stabbing, wild media speculation, and more time spent with one’s family.... It can only be the eagerly-anticipated return of Armando Iannucci’s cutting political comedy.

Rebecca Front and Peter Capaldi reprise their BAFTA-winning roles as Nicola Murray and Malcolm Tucker, now consigned to the opposition benches, but still desperate for power. Roger Allam returns as Peter Mannion, the new Secretary of State for Social Affairs, supported by his team of special advisors and thwarted by his new coalition partners.

Rebecca Front and Peter Capaldi reprise their BAFTA Award-winning roles as Nicola Murray and Malcolm Tucker, with Murray now the Leader of the Opposition after an unlikely accident of transferable voting. Malcolm Tucker is becoming increasingly frustrated as her media adviser and with Nicola safely on a train to attend the party’s Here 2 Hear in far-flung Bradford, he is free to launch his latest plot. But how is Olly going to be able to help, given that he’s in St Thomas’ Hospital with a burst appendix? And when Nicola finds out what’s going on, can she control the situation from a seat in standard class right under the watchful eye of Sky News? Or is she sitting on the fast train to Nowheresville, West Yorkshire?

Roger Allam returns as Peter Mannion, the new Secretary of State for Social Affairs, supported by his special advisers Phil and Emma, and thwarted by his new coalition partners, in the form of junior minister Fergus Williams and his adviser Adam Kenyon. He also has to put up with endless ‘imagineering’ from Number 10 adviser Stewart Pearson, who drags an unwilling Mannion and a bunch of backbenchers to a remote country house hotel, as the perfect way to re-engage the party with the creative cloudscape. But when Mannion returns to the ministry, he discovers he’s been made responsible for starting a bank, putting up taxes and driving a man to take his own life. Inevitably there’s a scramble for the moral high-ground and several people (including Nicola) are calling for some sort of inquiry. Everyone wants to spin the story, and everyone wants their own version of the story out there, by fair means or foul. But as more and more fingers get pointed the bigger the scandal becomes, finally threatening to implicate everybody. Surely now, the truth will come out. Unless someone lies, or creates a diversion of some kind, or simply pretends not to remember anything. They wouldn’t do that, would they?

It's "so funny it hurts, so savage it's scary" popularity spawned the 2009 spin-off film In the Loop, which also covers civil servants and their constant battle with the British media circus. HBO's comedy "Veep,", starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus is loosely based on the series. Described by creator Armando Iannucci as the 21st century's answer to "Yes Minister" meets "Larry Sanders," the show's material has a healthy dose of authenticity thanks to a few of the creators' former work in government.